KEY POINTS:
Telecom continued to power ahead today following yesterday's 2 per cent rise, helping to nudge the sharemarket into the positive.
The NZSX-50 Index was up 3.83 points to a six-week high of 4141.27 at 10.10am.
Telecom was up 5c to 488, building on yesterday's 10c gain. The stock is rising on hopes of a decent return to shareholders following last week's sale of its Yellow Pages division for $2.2 billion.
Many of the other blue chips were down. Contact was off 2c to 921, Air NZ 5c to 233, The Warehouse 3c to 672, Goodman Fielder 5c to 233 and Pumpkin Patch 3c to 432.
On the other side, Michael Hill was up 10c to 930, Infratil 7c to 577, NZ Refining 5c to 635.
Sky City lost 3c of yesterday's gain to be on 473.
* * *
On Wall Street, US stocks ended slightly higher as a new round of takeovers led by a US$29 billion ($40.7 billion) buyout bid for First Data Corp fuelled optimism about stock valuations, countering worries about the economy and turmoil in the housing market.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up 27.95 points at 12,382.30. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 3.69 points, at 1424.55 and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.62 point at 2422.26.
- NZPA